In an election eve coup d'états, former Speaker and access capitalist Newt Gingrich has received the endorsement of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, shaking up the entire contest and rendering the outcome uncertain.
"God told him to run for president, and who are we to second-guess it? Speaker Gingrich's life and policy positions fit our philosophy to a tee," said Reverend Moon. "The former Speaker has had multiple marriages and I perform multiple marriages. What is more, we love his recent focus on my namesake."
"I deeply appreciate Reverend Moon's vote of confidence, and it could not have come at a better time," exulted Gingrich. "He has married millions of couples who do what he says, and that provides us a harvest moon of votes. We have changed our campaign's theme to "'shine on.'"
Gingrich claimed the Reverend Moon's Unification Church to be example of how private enterprise accomplishes tasks currently handled by government much more efficiently. "Government paid, bureaucratic, pathetic Justices of the Peace and other godless liberal vermin perform one marriage at a time," said an ebullient Newt. " Reverend Moon does thousands."
"He is correct," said Reverend Moon, "I have married millions of people and the beauty of it is that I have only performed two ceremonies." PaulitiFact, direct competitor to PolitiFact, rated Gingrich's statement a half-truth because, while the numbers were correct, it was not clear that all these millions of couples were in love.
Told about this news on the campaign trail, former Massachusetts Governor W. Mitt Romney attacked the Reverend as an obvious fraud: "He's got 'Sun' and 'Moon' in the same name. It takes me a separate paragraph in the same speech to contradict myself," said the pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-healthcare, anti-Reagan Massachusetts liberal. "If he came to me proposing multiple marriages, I would fire him."
With this endorsement in his pocket, Gingrich again lashed out at the elite media. "They scoffed at mere mention of colonizing the moon, and look what electoral bounty it has provided me," scowled Gingrich. "I told them that I was going to run a different type of campaign, without advisers, without storefronts and without organizers," said Newt, "and they wrote me off. I am assembling a new coalition, including millions of Moonies, to stuff it down the media's throats."
Asked to comment, Congressman Ron Paul said, "this certainly changes the complexion of the campaign," after which his staff immediately released a statement indicating that nothing racial was intended. A spokesman for Rick Santorum said that he was doing his taxes, and he advises the Reverend Moon to do his very carefully.
Sarah Palin was overjoyed. She would not comment but her Facebook page said that she was so pleased that, as one mom to another, she was going to buy Katie Couric a year's subscription the Washington Times, the Moon-owned newspaper that Sarah does not read either.
Gingrich concluded the press briefing with a promise: "Elect me president and I will govern in poetry, not prose. At the end of my second term, I will have my next marriage performed by Reverend Moon, on the moon. What could be more poetic than that?"